Table Of Content“INFINITE EARTHS”: CROSSMEDIA ADAPTATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CONTINUITY IN THE DC ANIMATED UNIVERSE
Alex Nader
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green
State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
May 2015
Committee:
Jeff Brown, Advisor
Becca Cragin
© 2015
Alexander Nader
All Rights Reserved
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ABSTRACT
Jeff Brown, Advisor
This thesis examines the process of adapting comic book properties into other visual
media. I focus on the DC Animated Universe, the popular adaptation of DC Comics characters
and concepts into all-ages programming. This adapted universe started with Batman: The
Animated Series and comprised several shows on multiple networks, all of which fit into a shared
universe based on their comic book counterparts. The adaptation of these properties is heavily
reliant to intertextuality across DC Comics media. The shared universe developed within the
television medium acted as an early example of comic book media adapting the idea of shared
universes, a process that has been replicated with extreme financial success by DC and Marvel
(in various stages of fruition). I address the process of adapting DC Comics properties in
television, dividing it into “strict” or “loose” adaptations, as well as derivative adaptations that
add new material to the comic book canon. This process was initially slow, exploding after the
first series (Batman: The Animated Series) changed networks and Saturday morning cartoons
flourished, allowing for more opportunities for producers to create content. References,
crossover episodes, and the later series Justice League Unlimited allowed producers to utilize
this shared universe to develop otherwise impossible adaptations that often became lasting
additions to DC Comics publishing. Concepts developed in this paratextual universe became
popular enough to see recursive adaptation in DC Comics ongoing comic book universe and
other media, emphasizing the importance of cross-media connections. The continued popularity
and success of comic book media is reliant on cross-media synergy and shared universes.
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Dedicated to my parents, friends, and my loving girlfriend. Thank you for your support.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the Popular Culture department at BGSU. The faculty and my
courses forever transformed the way I think about critical issues, entertainment, and the world as
a whole. I would also like to thank my cohort, who supported me through all of this—and I them,
I hope.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..... 1
CHAPTER I. ADAPTING PROPERTIES FOR A NEW AUDIENCE ............................... 12
Creative Control ......................................................................................................... 13
“Dark Deco” and the Revision of Properties ............................................................. 19
Loose Adaptation ....................................................................................................... 22
Strict Adaptation ........................................................................................................ 28
Consistency, Change, and New Material ................................................................... 34
CHAPTER II. INTERTEXTUALITY AND CONTINUITY BETWEEN SERIES ............ 41
Visual Consistency..................................................................................................... 48
Serial Storytelling ...................................................................................................... 53
Vital Retroactive Connections ................................................................................... 62
Later Developments ................................................................................................... 66
CHAPTER III. RECURSIVE ADAPTATION .................................................................... 78
Harley Quinn ............................................................................................................ 81
Batman Beyond .......................................................................................................... 89
Blueprint for Success ................................................................................................. 96
CONCLUSION……... ........................................................................................................... 101
WORKS CITED......... ........................................................................................................... 106
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INTRODUCTION
The originality of many media is obviously growing increasingly sparse. While
accessibility and the sheer amount may be higher than ever (and continually increasing), the
majority of media are derivative works. The popularity of these derivative works lies in their
built-in potential for finding an audience. Sequels, adaptations of books and comic books, and
reboots of the aforementioned material dominate television and film media. These adaptations,
sequels and similar texts, while derivative, do have the potential to be both creatively satisfying
and financially successful. The overarching goal of this thesis is to examine the success of DC
Comics’ animation through the 1990s and early 2000s in order to understand its success. I will
discuss how the developers of comic book media have utilized similar tactics in the development
of properties that led to longevity and financial success. Furthermore, the popularity of DC’s
animation has led to the materials’ adaptation into DC’s other media as the parent company has
developed methods of maintaining and growing the audience already acquainted with DC’s
television media and its many influences. I will examine these topics through the lens of
adaptation studies, which utilize aspects of Julia Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality heavily in
their examination of adaptations, their popularity, and the reasoning behind it.
Graham Allen’s Intertextuality heavily utilizes Kristeva’s definition of the term, bridging
it to popular texts like Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and the films of Jean-Luc Godard.
He espouses the idea of intertextuality—that texts are identified in relation to other texts. This
understanding of intertextuality is integral to my thesis; DC’s media specifically affect each
other in a direct manner that reflects a changing view of intertextuality. While Allen posited that
much of what DC produces—reproduced “versions” of its many franchises—they are continually
adding or modifying elements that stand to change the potential for that version’s cultural
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relevance and longevity. He identifies one particularly interesting suggestion of adaptations: they
rely on new techniques and old patterns (185). The elite mixes with the popular, the new mixes
with the old, and they create compelling reasons for readers to view derivative works in order to
develop upon their existing connection with the text. Intertextuality in this sense is tied to the
growing field of adaptation studies.
Linda Hutcheon’s recent book, A Theory of Adaptation, helps to develop the specifics of
understanding the adaptation of properties across many different media. Her study is divided into
several questions about adaptation (in order): What, Who, Why, How, Where, and When.
Hutcheon identifies reasoning behind adaptation around all avenues, clearly delineating many of
the important cultural elements that lead to the amount of adaptations we constantly experience.
One of her most intriguing ideas suggests that the appeal of adaptation is in the audience’s
experience of repetition and difference, identifying Julian Barnes’s supposition that audiences
want replicas as inspiration (114). Proven story structures with comparatively small changes
continually gain high amounts of popularity and praise from audiences, and thus we see them
repeated ad nauseum.
Hutcheon develops an understanding of adaptation across many media, understanding
that the economy of adaptation is an integral part of its success: “…adaptation across all modes
of engagement is economic. Broadway adapts from Hollywood; novelizations are timed to
coincide with the release of a film” (30). Specific versions of characters or media can override
the reader’s perception of that media. Hutcheon specifically cites Harry Potter’s Quidditch as an
example of a concept that is influenced heavily by its film adaptation, at least in her view. Her
understanding of adaptation takes in account the economic aspects of adaptation. She writes,
“[t]he entertainment industry is just that: an industry” (88). Hutcheon’s theory forms a rationale
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for the spread, revision and utilization of similar ideas across media—the eponymous theory of
adaptation—that I will utilize in this thesis to understand DC’s development of animated
properties.
Hutcheon’s exploration of adaptations ties in with Jonathan Gray’s Show Sold Separately,
a recent book wherein Gray identifies texts that act as supporting documents to other texts. His
study of merchandise, spoilers, trailers, sequels, and other supplementary material coincides with
my research on DC’s animation properties. As ostensibly supplementary shows—supporting DC
comics and films—they are subject to many of the demands that Gray identifies with “paratexts.”
The identification of a single prominent text with franchised characters like Batman and
Superman is a subject of endless debate among fans and creators. Gray writes,
…Hollywood and its marketers often mobilize paratexts [supplementary material to the
‘main text’] to proffer ‘proper interpretations,’ some preceding the show’s arrival in the
public sphere, thereby setting up pre-decodings, and some working in medias res to
subtly inflect the public understanding of an ongoing and open text (81).
DC Comics, along with Marvel and many other entertainment producers, work endlessly to craft
their popularly preferred versions of their characters and properties. The various media and
producers work together to develop synergistic approaches to their media. I will utilize Gray’s
research and theorization about paratexts in the identification of elements that are maintained
across media, particularly in the adaptation of characters and new versions thereof.
Julie Sanders discusses adaptation as a process in Adaptation and Appropriation. She
identifies integral elements that signify that the new text is an adaptation help develop the text
into something more than a reproduction. James Joyce’s Ulysses, for instance, is a very loose
adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey with very important structural and stylistic changes (and a very
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different setting with different stakes) that intensely differentiate it from its forebear. Its status as
an adaptation is far different than film or comic book adaptations of the same text. The array of
adaptations is incredibly varied. Sanders’ approach, while important in understanding the
popularity and appeal of adaptations, does not wholly work for adaptations of comic books. She
suggests that adaptation is an inherently conservative genre; I believe that it is more of a method
or a mode of production rather than a genre. Adaptation is generally conservative, though it
allows for more potential in existing media’s fruition. While Ulysses’ Leopold Bloom is that
story’s version of Odysseus, Tim Burton’s Batman is that film’s version of Batman. When a
company owns these properties, rather than individuals, the discussion of adaptation is difficult
to discuss within these boundaries.
Sanders references an essay by T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” that
acted as a forerunner to understanding the appeal of adaptation. Eliot’s essay focuses on
literature and poetry, suggesting early ideas of intertextuality and the importance of relating texts
to their contemporaries and forerunners. He writes:
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his
appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot
value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead (Eliot).
Eliot’s—again very early but nonetheless impressive and useful—account of an early version of
intertextuality is helpful in developing understanding of the popularity and frequency of
adaptations. Eliot’s position was that earlier poets colored and inspired future writings. His own
work, specifically “The Waste Land,” epitomizes this position. Eliot writes about the great
literary tradition of poets, which can (perhaps blasphemously to some) be transferred to the
producers of comic book media. Sanders’ development of a theory based around Eliot’s work is
